After a week of cryptic hints and vague innuendo, the other shoe finally dropped Thursday night – with a very loud thud – re: the NCAA's alleged interest in Oregon recruiting. Here's what you, the informed college football consumer, need to know:• According to public invoices (see here and here) obtained by Yahoo! Sports, Oregon paid more than $28,000 to two men with personal ties to current Ducks for "recruiting services" – specifically, video of potential prospects. Recruiting services are common and legal (see below), but if either of the recipients in this case is determined to have had a role in a prospects' recruitment, he could be classified as a booster and bring significant heat from the NCAA.
• ESPN confirmed that the NCAA is interested, though not necessarily in Oregon so much as in the recruiting services themselves.
• One of the two men in question, Will Lyles, is a personal trainer who runs a Houston-based company called Complete Scouting Services, which boasts a database offering the "phone numbers, home addresses, e-mail addresses, GPA and test scores" of "thousands of high school players." He's of interest here, though, because of his alleged relationships with a pair of current Duck speedsters from east Texas: Heisman Trophy finalist LaMichael James, who reportedly invited Lyles to last December's Home Depot Awards Show in Orlando as a personal guest, and Lache Seastrunk (above), a former five-star prospect who reportedly counted Lyles as a "mentor" before he signed with Oregon in 2010. Oregon's payment to Lyles also sent up red flags because of the amount, $25,000, described as an "exorbitant" sum for recruiting film – especially for only one or two prospects – though not unheard of.
• The other man, Baron Flenory, played for Oregon coach Chip Kelly at New Hampshire, and was paid $3,745 for recruiting film – the only recruiting film Flenory's company, New Level Athletics, ever sold. Flenory (who worked for Scout.com before founding New Level) said he decided to discontinue that line because of a new NCAA rule that prohibits companies that run camps on campuses from also selling scouting services, and New Level's well-known, well-attended 7-on-7 camps are "better business." Several current Ducks – including high profile recruits De'Anthony Thomas, Cliff Harris, Dior Mathis and Tacoi Sumler – went through one of Flenory's camps, and he reportedly had "a personal training relationship" with another, Anthony Wallace.
Oregon's response: Meh, is that all? Kelly told ESPN that "most programs purchase recruiting services," and "our compliance office is aware of it." The university released a statement to the same effect, saying the payments were "within the acceptable guidelines allowed by the NCAA," were made "with the knowledge of the department’s compliance office," and haven't roused any interest from the NCAA or the Pac-10.
Clearly, from the ESPN report and its interview with De'Anthony Thomas, the NCAA is interested in something, though exactly what that is – the university or the middle men – isn't entirely clear. It's a big media shot, and investigators may be forced to respond to it with a round of due diligence in Eugene. But the university's swift, confident rebuttal, at this point, puts the odds of significant consequences for the program on the far end of "long."
What is clear: Oregon, you've officially hit the big time, baby.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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